Drip Review: Can This Email and SMS Marketing Tool Boost Your Revenue?

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Email is a popular communication channel that also remains the best way to reach potential buyers who opted-in for your emails.

SMS messages have enormous reach as well. By 2025, almost 5.9 billion people globally will send and receive text messages.

This post reviews Drip’s SMS marketing features and also introduces the perfect all-in-one platform to support your email and SMS marketing automation needs.

Ready? Let’s begin.

1. What is Drip?

Drip’s homepage

Drip is an email and SMS marketing tool that’s specifically designed for ecommerce businesses and ecommerce business owners.

Besides promising to take your marketing to the next level, Drip can also help turn your visitors into potential buyers.

With Drip’s feature set, you can:

Send out targeted emails to your customers
Track categorized emails and funnels
Integrate your customer’s data from ecommerce stores such as BigCommerce, WooCommerce, and Shopify
Engage customers with multiple marketing campaigns in one platform

With its array of advanced features, Drip promises to guide your potential buyers along the buying process and help improve customer experience to make more sales, boost great value, and attract repeat customers.

Before we get into the specifics of the Drip software, here’s a quick rundown of Drip’s strengths and weaknesses.

1.1. Drip’s pros and cons

Let's look at Drip’s upsides and downsides.

Pros

Easy to use

Solid integrations with ecommerce businesses such as Spotify

Strong pre-built automation features

Customer relationship management (CRM) features cater well for ecommerce businesses

Has a minimal learning curve

Cons

Expensive pricing

Below-par pre-made templates

Sometimes the platform can get buggy, affecting its efficacy

It lacks proper conversion rate optimization (CRO) features

Has a limited form builder

Drip’s unique selling point is that it helps small businesses sell products online by integrating with Shopify and other ecommerce platforms.

Now that you know the few areas where Drip falls short of the hype, let's look at what you can do with Drip’s list of features.

2. Drip’s features

Unlike other email marketing platforms, Drip features are specifically designed to create ecommerce-related drip campaigns.

If you're new to using email marketing automation tools, this Drip review will help you decide whether this is the right lead capture tool for you.

2.1. Email marketing automation software

On top of the list is the email marketing automation tool.

The value of marketing automation software can’t be underestimated.

80% of marketing automation users have improved their lead generation efforts, and another 77% experience higher conversion rates.

Drip comes with a visual email builder that helps Drip users quickly set up email marketing automation tools for their campaigns in just a few clicks.

Source: Drip.com

The only downside is that Drip’s email marketing platform includes limited templates to help you speed up the process — a small gripe, but one that’s worth mentioning.

However, it's easy to forgive Drip for this considering the platform boasts plenty of built-in automation workflows, which come in handy, especially for the following ecommerce functions:

Source: Drip.com

Customer win-back emails
Abandoned cart emails
Birthday emails
Welcome emails
Post-purchase emails

Drip’s email automation allows you to build lasting relationships with your customers from the first day they join your list.

Even if you don't have a great deal of experience with CRMs, Drip’s visual email builder makes it incredibly easy to automate your emails.

2.2. SMS marketing automation software

The next feature is the SMS marketing automation platform.

Despite email being a popular communication channel, texts boast open rates of up to 98%, while emails have an average open rate of 20%.

With Drip’s SMS marketing feature, you can:

Reach your customers fast

Drip’s visual SMS builder allows you to design interactive SMS campaigns, complete with emojis and personalization — making it easier to reach your customers, fast.

Run cross-channel marketing

Source: Drip.com

Drip lets you combine existing email segments in one cohesive workflow builder (to power your SMS and email marketing campaign).

Get clear performance insights and metrics

Source: Drip.com

To easily perfect your marketing campaign, Drip allows you to see all the metrics you need from one place.

Lastly, Drip’s SMS marketing tools also provide you with everything you need to ensure TCPA compliance.

In essence, Drip takes care of the regulation headaches for you — letting you rest easy knowing your SMS marketing efforts will run without a hitch.

2.3. Insights and guidance

Drip’s insight and guidance feature can help your online business earn greater revenue, boost conversions, and increase engagement.

With this feature, you get a chance to:

Propel conversions and improve repeat business — Drive sales consistently with this feature, and access segment insights and analytics
Track your marketing results — Guide your plans, help you stay in the know, and discover ways to improve performance

A case in point is abandoned cart rates:

Source: Drip.com

Know your expected marketing ROI — See your marketing journey (from what your projected revenue will be to how much it takes to set up your next campaign)
Access pre-built automation workflows, pop-ups, and on-site forms — Launch your marketing campaigns with built-in email templates, pop-ups, and email capture forms

Source: Drip.com

To keep track of your business marketing strategies and profit margins, you need reliable data — that’s what this Drip feature provides you with.

2.4. Segmentation and personalization

Still blasting email batches to your list? You could be losing potential buyers.

To win them back (and make more sales), start sending highly personalized emails and text messages instead.

With Drip’s segmentation and personalization feature, you can:

Serve your potential customers personalized Drip email content that lets you understand their behavior on a deeper level
Segment your customers based on how they shop and how they click on your page, to collect key data for your marketing campaign
Automate and personalize your targeted campaigns using pre-built and custom segments alike

In short, this Drip feature lets you create unique customer journeys.

Source: Freepik

That’s why this feature is important to ecommerce businesses — it makes more sales and attracts repeat purchases after the initial conversion.

2.5. Forms and pop-ups

With a great email acquisition strategy and Drip’s email and SMS capture forms, pop-ups come in handy as they’re designed to grow your audience.

Source: Drip.com

This Drip feature helps you build an email list, convert drive-by web traffic into loyal repeat customers, and connect with customers.

Drip is laden with built-in forms and popup templates that you can customize to your satisfaction — from button to font to style (without coding a thing).

This Drip feature lets you:

Track your on-brand forms and pop-up performance on Drip’s dashboard
Engage and convert your audience on your website
Create a great experience using personalized forms and pop-ups
Set up on-brand forms and pop-ups in the least amount of time possible

Having automated forms and pop-ups allows you to serve your customers products you're confident they’ll love based on their needs.

3. Drip ecommerce CRM overview

To help ecommerce businesses focus on true “customer experiences”, Drip developed an ecommerce customer relationship management (ECRM) tool.

Customer experience starts before customers arrive at your site.

With that in mind, all your SMS and email marketing campaigns should be:

Presented in a proper context
Well-integrated (with the right automation tools)
Intimate enough to attract your customers

Compared to other sales and marketing tools, Drip’s ecommerce CRM platform is designed to keep your customers as close as possible.

With Drip’s ecommerce CRM platform, you can do the following:

Get closer to your customers — Connect tons of data with intelligent marketing automation across all your digital channels to help you talk to your customers with spot-on timing and context
Organize complex data inputs into one place — Connecting multi-channel touch points from your digital channels, you’ll be able to use this data for your email campaigns
See what your customers are doing all the time — Drip’s ECRM tracks all the pages, links, and emails that your customers are clicking
Increase your engagement, conversion, and sales — Create more targeted marketing campaigns that can supercharge your sales funnel, create engagement, and make more sales

In short, Drip's ecommerce CRM offers personalization at a greater scale.

Now that you have a good idea of what Drip can do, let's look at how much this email and SMS marketing automation tool will set you back.

4. Drip’s pricing

Drip’s pricing plan for emails and SMSes

Drip’s pricing is based on the number of texts you plan to send, the volume of sent monthly emails, and the contacts in your list.

For example, all Drip customers in the $32/month plan have access to:

Email support
Space for up to 2,000 contacts
Up to 200 SMS messages
Unlimited email sends

Also, Drip offers a 14-day free trial (no credit card information is required) and gives you full access to Drip’s feature set, including:

Email templates and visual email builder
SMS and unlimited emails
Over 90 integrations (including WooCommerce, Magento, and Shopify)
Automated workflows based on customer activity

But Drip’s free trial isn’t free forever.

Once the free trial expires, you’ll be automatically prompted to upgrade to a paid plan and asked to provide your credit card details.

5. Drip alternatives

Drip email marketing software runs sophisticated marketing campaigns for growing ecommerce businesses.

However, simpler and more affordable email marketing platforms exist that can help you hit the ground running — a good case in point is systeme.io.

5.1. Systeme.io — The best all-in-one email marketing automation platform

systeme.io logo

Besides needing a fully integrated automation solution, it’s essential to have the right email marketing automation tool for your online business.

To help reach your potential customers, systeme.io provides you with advanced email marketing automation features that allow you to:

Create your own email marketing campaigns
Add fields with our drag-and-drop capabilities
Send unlimited marketing emails
Manage your email list and contacts

With systeme.io, you can also:

Generate sales with our ecommerce features
Set up automated email sequences for more personalized email experiences that’ll help turn visitors into potential customers
Keep track of the performance of your emails with detailed analytics
Segment your customers and send targeted emails to specific groups

How much will our powerful tool cost you?

systeme.io’s pricing

You can start using systeme.io completely free of charge — we won’t even ask for your credit card information.

With our Forever Free plan, you get access to the following:

24/7 online support via email
1 online course with unlimited students
Add space for up to 2,000 contacts
Unlimited emails
1 contact tag, and automated campaign
3 sales funnels with 10 steps (including access to deadline funnels)

When you’re ready, for only $27/month, the Startup plan allows you space for up to 5,000 contacts with more features from the Free plan.

To increase the number of contacts to 10,000 and unlimited contacts, upgrade to the Webinar ($47/month) and Unlimited ($97/month) plans respectively.

Whether you run ecommerce businesses or work as a consultant for an ecommerce brand, systeme.io will help you scale your small business.

5.2. Klaviyo

Klaviyo logo

Klaviyo is an ecommerce marketing tool that helps turn email campaigns and automation into sales with detailed data and personalization.

With Klaviyo, you can:

Send your best emails that lead to actual sales
Deliver the most relevant content to customers at the right time using an interactive segmentation tool to engage your customers
Access a simple drag-and-drop editor to create transactional emails, automated workflows, and marketing campaigns
View welcome email open rates using built-in benchmarks

Like Drip, Klaviyo’s pricing also depends on the number of contacts that receive at least a text message during a billing cycle.

Klaviyo’s pricing plan

With Klaviyo’s $40/month plan, you can:

Send text messages to up to 1,000 contacts
Send 10,000 emails every month
Send up to 1,250 SMSes
Access email and chat support

On this platform, email and SMS automation features have different pricing structures — you can use each channel separately or together.

Klaviyo offers free plans for both email and SMS, but they’re limited.

You can only send up to 500 emails to 250 contacts (or 150 SMS messages to 50 contacts) on a Free plan.

If you exceed that limit, upgrade to a higher plan.

5.3. GetResponse

GetResponse logo

GetResponse is an email marketing software that helps you automate your marketing campaigns, create pages, and send out emails to customers.

GetResponse’s feature set is designed to:

Find new customers and build your email list
Increase customer engagement with targeted communication options
Market your ecommerce business and deliver great experiences

Unlike Drip and Klaviyo, GetResponse comes with 3 paid pricing plans — each with its unique add-on availability and advanced features:

GetResponse’s pricing plans

Basic plan ($19/month) — Great for email marketing and list building
Plus plan ($59/month) — Best for lead generation and growing an online presence
Professional plan ($119/month) — Designed to bring you more revenue from multi-platform marketing campaigns

GetResponse also comes with a Free-forever plan (no credit card details required).

With GetResponse’s Free plan, you can:

Collect leads
Test and utilize advanced features for one month
Add up to 500 contacts
Create advanced automation workflows for your marketing needs
Send unlimited emails
Create 1 landing page and website

While it doesn’t come close to comparing to systeme.io, GetResponse matches our platform when it comes to offering a free-forever pricing plan.

6. Conclusion

Want to reach out to thousands of monthly visitors and subscribers?

You’ll most likely benefit from Drip’s advanced email automation feature.

To improve your conversions and list management, Drip can also help you deliver more targeted emails and understand your customers better.

However, if you lack significant web traffic or you're pressed for time when it comes to email and SMS marketing — we highly recommend systeme.io.

Systeme.io is an affordable email and SMS marketing platform that comes with more features suited for your small business marketing needs.